


Dances with Snakes

by SkartoArgento



Category: Far Cry 3
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:47:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkartoArgento/pseuds/SkartoArgento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snakes can have no legs, or they can have two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dances with Snakes

**Author's Note:**

> I need to write more Far Cry 3 stuff, I've really missed it.

 

 

In the fuzzy half-light of dawn, the pirate stopped his wandering of the perimeter fence and yawned behind a red bandanna. Long night of endless patrolling, drinking, and pissing against the fence. Even cutting a starved feral dog in half with a blast of his shotgun obviously hadn't been enough to kill the monotony, the boredom.

 

Jason could relate; until landing on the island, things had been _very_ boring.

 

Raucous laughter drifted up to his position on the hillside, and through the scope of the M-700, the pirate frowned, glared a hole through the fence. Probably wondering when some other poor fucker would come and take over pacing the same area so he could get some shut-eye.

 

Jason plucked a small twig from the ground, put it between his back teeth, and lay on his stomach on the small ridge. Aimed. Brushed the trigger with the tip of finger. He'd spent the night wondering if a tiger could come and clear the place out for him, and now he was out of patience. Cross hairs hovered just above the bandanna knot at the back of the pirate's head. The suppressor on the sniper would keep any others from hearing, and he could pick off the relief when it came. One at a time, nice and easy. No alarms, no reinforcements, even though the compound building was far bigger than the ones he was used to. Then he could get his own shut-eye – curl up on one of the (no doubt) grotty cots in the building. Maybe knock himself out with whatever they were drinking in there first.

 

The pirate yawned again, took a moment to scratch under the bandanna.

 

A thread of excitement curled from his stomach to his groin. Little more pressure on the trigger, and Sleepy down there wouldn't have to worry about being tired any more.

 

He held his breath tight. Prepared for the recoil.

 

And –

 

Twin stings jabbed down into his elbow. Pain lanced down his arm, lightning fast, burning.

 

“Fuck- _fuck!_ ”

 

At least he had the presence of mind not to scream. He shied away, up onto his knees, scrambled back with one hand over his elbow. The sniper clunked to the ground. What the fuck- what the _actual_ _fuck_ just –

 

It slithered into the growing light with a noise like sandpaper scraping metal. Gold bands of scales broke the solid purple of the rest, and yellow eyes stayed on him, glowed in the first few rays of sun. If he had seen it at the zoo, it would have been a pretty impressive creature (“trippy,” Ollie would have called it) even though the other snakes on the island dwarfed its arm-long body. But right then and there? Little scaly prick was ugly as hell.

 

“You mother-” he grabbed the snake behind the head, flung it as far down the hill as he could, “ _fucker._ ”

 

He stood, took a quick look at his elbow. Dots of blood and a slight raised puffiness marked the wound. The burning reached his fingertips, not as bad as the shock first had him thinking, and receded with a numb tingling.

 

He wiped at the wound with his thumb, conscious of the way his heart thudded blood, and whatever the snake had on its fangs, around his body. Luck had been on his side regarding the other scaly residents of Rook Island – whatever venom they had didn't affect him, it seemed – but this felt different to those other bites. Fumbling fingers found the last endorphin boost syringe in his backpack and rested the needle against a vein that branched between the fang marks. The faint sting was no more than the prick of a thorn compared to the bite.

 

After a cursory glance to make sure no other snakes had managed to sneak up on him, he bound the wound with a tattered strip of bandage. It would just have to do for now. Maybe he could hightail it to Earnhardt after clearing this compound and see if the weird old guy knew anything about ninja purple snakes.

 

The endorphin boost gave his body a swift kick. Time to clean up.

 

Heat throbbed up through his elbow when he lay on his stomach again and pulled the M-700 back into position. Grit and blades of grass poked into his arms. The clouds morphed orange in the early sun. Seventy meters from the compound, plenty of space between them. The scope went back against his eye, and he hunted for the pirate again.

 

There- leaning against the fence, blue shirt now, not red. It didn't register for a second. Then it kicked him in the stomach like the endorphin boost.

 

“Riley?”

 

No, no, it couldn't be. He scoped up, saw a mess of black hair, brown eyes. A further zoom, close enough to see the smatter of freckles that Grant used to say would wash off if Riley scrubbed hard with a sponge. A bullet hole in Riley's right shoulder wept red, stained his blue shirt a muddy purple. Riley didn't even seem to notice, and swung the shotgun over his shoulders.

 

Before he could shout out, Riley looked around, bored, and headed through the hole in the fence.

 

“No- don't- _dangerous-_ ” His words stuttered, caught in his throat, like he was talking to characters on TV or in a film. No way they could hear him, but he would try anyway.

 

He shrugged the sniper rifle off his shoulder, left it where it lay. The weight would only slow him down. He'd come so far, changed so much- Riley couldn't disappear again, not after Grant.

 

A convoy of cars thundered down the road towards the compound. Red, too red, too winding, like some deep-dwelling jungle beast with venom seeping out of pores and bright skin to warn predators. _Don't come near, I'm poison._ He didn't give a single fuck. It didn't matter how many were there, how many arrived. Grass slipped under his shoes as he slid down the hill with his Colt M1911 already in hand. Voices rose when the convoy screeched to a halt out of sight, happy, laughing and loud. 

 

He would kill them all.

 

Stronger sunlight glinted off sharp metal angles. A thick green frond cut his arm, but the pain didn't come. Wood smoke burned his nostrils, rich underneath with the smell of cooking meat. More laughter broke, interrupted by the coughing roar of a leopard somewhere in the compound. Bastards probably had it in a cage.

 

His back hit the fence next to the hole. No alarms, not yet.

 

“Riley,” he whispered through the hole, as loud as he dared, _“Riley?”_

 

Nothing, save the laughter and the slam of a door closing. The voices became muffled. Maybe they had him in that building. Maybe they were feeding his body parts to the leopard.

 

The tropical equivalent of ivy snaked down metal and trailed over the gap in the fence. He brushed it aside, ignored the way it changed to a curtain of beads in his fingers, and stepped out onto the dance floor.

 

Purple lights throbbed to a silent beat. There should have been noise, music, and in some kind of distant way he _did_ hear it – words that would have been foreign in any language, instruments no one had ever played before. On the panels of glowing light that made the floor, shadow figures danced, undulating and swaying

 

The door of the back room beckoned, red and peeling, and hummed with its own song.

 

Wisps of dry-ice mist fluttered at his ankles. Neon lights wrapped the bar in blue and green lines. Thick air fought every step he took, sapped his energy. The shadows melted out of his way, bleeding the cold evaporation smell of alcohol and sweat, gathered on the floor and reformed behind him to continue dancing.

 

To his left, sat on one of the leather couches, Grant raised a glass in his direction. The bullet hole at his throat sprayed blood with each word. Even so far away, even over the invisible songs, he still heard them.

 

"Great night, huh, J?"

 

The figure sitting opposite did the same, and he recognised the beanie hat and glasses, but not the mess of face underneath, not the bisected chest or stomach.

 

He dropped his eyes from Vincent. Grant considered the glass, and this time his lips didn't move. "We're going to find him, we're going to free the others, and then we're going home."

 

_Where's home now, though, where do I go, do I stay with her or go with them-_

 

A memory of Vaas howled inside his head, the snap of calm-to-rage so instant that it drove a spike of fear deep into his chest.

 

_"Who the FUCK is it going to be - THEM or ME!? ME or THEM!?"_

 

He let the gun fall from his hand.

 

"I'm not like him," he whispered to Grant, "I'm not."

 

Grant's smile, patient and sad, chilled him. Vincent creaked a laugh from the hole of his mouth. Apologies died on his lips when both of them, with the sound of a waning heartbeat, thudded into shadows. Drinks slipped through, shattered with no noise.

 

Riley sparkled beyond the crowd, blue in a sea of black, facing away to stare off at some distant point on the wall.

 

He waded through the maze of shadows, stumbled over things he couldn't see. Riley, so close now - and _so close_ to his own redemption, maybe he could go back to the way he had been before the island, before he'd ever killed, before he knew how to shoot a gun –

 

His fingertips brushed a shirt that flashed blue-red-blue. Riley turned, eyes wide, hand reaching up automatically –

 

The hug knocked them both off balance, but he held on to Riley, arms wrapped around him until they found it again. "Oh God, oh God, you're alive, you're okay," the words babbled out before he could stop them, "I found you, it's going to be all right!"

 

But Riley stiffened, pulled back in his arms, panic widening his mouth and eyes.

 

"What?" He turned, looked for anything out of place. The room still moved to its strange rhythm, the door to the back room still teased. "Riley, it's okay, we're going home -"

 

_"Snow White!"_ Riley's scream rang in his head. _"Snow white's here! Help me!"_

 

"Riley - shh, it's okay -"

 

Behind the red door, shouts instead of laughter. Around them, the shadows turned to watch. Riley struggled, but he held him close. Not letting go again.

 

The door burst open, and she stood there, hands on hips.

 

Silence flooded the room. Even Riley fell still against his chest. Her voice rose, commanded the entire area. "What the fuck is all this fucking shouting about? It's fucking rude to -"

 

Riley squirmed out of his arms, hair ruffled and eyes angry, like back when they had been kids, wrestling and ganging up on the youngest with a kind of childish cruelty. They'd grown out of that quickly enough when Dad died (mostly - sometimes he still liked to grab Riley in a headlock and rub his knuckles against his head until Grant made him stop.)

 

Citra's eyes caught his, blazed a fire that reached all the way down between his legs. She stalked forward, hair swinging at her back. "Jason Fucking Brody.

 

_She doesn't sound like that she never -_

 

"You crazy piece of shit, what the fuck do you want, huh?" Her hands moved with every word, sweeping, curling. "You're dead now, do you know that?"

 

The lights flashed around them. Some of the shadows grew faces, gathered behind Citra and pointed at him.

 

What did he want?

 

He stepped forward, and the music started again. "I came for a dance."

 

The shadows muttered amongst themselves, but when Citra laughed, loud and derisive, they mimicked her like a flock of well-trained parrots. Then her voice dropped down into a murmur. “Snow White came for a dance.” She slinked towards him like a tiger, flashes of coiled muscles and teeth bared. The neon lights strobed on her face, flicked it between male and female.“What kind of dance, _hermano?_ Huh? A waltz? Salsa? You want me to put you on stage so you can slide around a pole? Or maybe,” she said, and reached out a hand to scrape the tip of a fingernail down his cheek to his chin, “you want to sit in my lap and bounce on my dick.”

 

The parrot flock screeched in amusement, but Citra held his stare without a smile. Her hands closed over his wrists (she had smaller hands than that, didn't she? She was shorter than that, wasn't she?) and jerked him forward into her chest. They rocked on the dance floor, slow, even though the beat was as fast and as loud as his heart. Her head bent, and she brushed her lips over his ear. "I'm gonna kill you, _hermano_." A hand pressed under his shirt, warm against his stomach. "Slide it in right _here_. You might still be alive for..." her head tick-tocked to the side, considering, "ten minutes. Maybe. I'll make it shorter if you ask nicely."

 

The words meant nothing, empty in his head, but the brutal undercurrent of excitement had him embarrassingly hard against her thigh. She smelled like sweat, the dull metal of guns, and, underneath, like the warm soil of the jungle after rain.

 

Her fingers went to his waist, fumbling there, and the knife clunked to the floor. What did it matter? It was hers anyway. She seized his wrist again, held out his arm and swiped over the purple dots with a thumb. "You got bitten by a fucking snake? Jason... that's just fucking embarrassing, man. You gotta watch where you're sitting. Nothing to say, huh?" Her eyes, so close, her face flicking into one with sharper lines, a broader jaw - "Huh?"

 

He crashed his mouth into hers, so hard that he sliced his own lips on teeth.

 

She did nothing but make a tiny noise of surprise into his mouth. He pressed closer to her, wound his arms around her back -

 

A yank of his hair stung, but didn't hurt as much as the backhand to his face. Pain spread over his cheek like fire. “Jason,” Vaas's voice purred into his ear, “you're real fucking rude, you know?”

 

Citra's face shifted. The walls of the club shattered outwards in streams of colour. All the light of the floor dimmed to dust. The neon lines writhed, like worms caught out of the earth, and sucked themselves into the ground.

 

The morning sun stabbed pain through his eyelids. Fingers clenched in his hair.

 

Too many lights, too much noise. He closed his eyes, caught disjointed words that bubbled up from the crowd. His name, harsh on the tongues of some pirates, covered with grease and lust on others.

 

Around his back, another hand pressed him forward. Fuzzy strands of thought snagged in his mind. No guns. Knife on the ground. Captured again by... by -

 

Terror stole into his stomach slowly and clenched until he forced his eyes open. Vaas stared right back, and those hands gripped a little harder.

 

"Not even flowers first? Do you think I'm such a cheap date, _hermano_?"

 

Adrenaline kicked in like a hammer to the gut. The fear in his stomach rose to his throat. Had to get away, had to go _right now -_

 

He couldn't go backwards, so instead he went forwards, launched his body up and aimed his forehead straight at Vaas's face. The crunch of bone he hoped for didn't happen, just another yank of hair that held him back and forced his head up.

 

Desperate, his fingers became claws, and he caught skin under them, ripped down and saw blood well. A roar in his ears. Not in pain, but absolute fury, madness.

 

A blur of dark skin, and teeth caught his throat between them, squeezed the sides of his windpipe.

 

He froze. Compliance descended like a shroud. His arms fell to his sides.

 

Vaas's teeth closed in another millimetre. Why didn't he just bite down and end it? Was this just a game? Sick bastard.

 

The hand at his back felt its way down to the top of his ass. He jerked back, a strangled noise of denial on his lips, but the teeth clenched even harder.

 

His pulse beat frantic in his lips and fingertips. Vaas probably felt it at his throat. One of the pirates, high off his ass by the sound of it, started to bray like a donkey. Glad someone found the situation fucking funny.

 

The hand in his hair loosened, and the smart of scalp pricked tears at the corners of his eyes. Shit, now it probably looked like he was about to cry like a fucking baby. He wouldn't give these assholes the satisfaction, they wouldn't get one tear out of -

 

A shocked gasp wrenched itself from his throat. That free hand had sneaked between his legs, and now something other than his throat was getting squeezed. Still hard - _fuck_ , how could he still be hard?

 

Slick heat ran over the skin of his neck. The hand on his erection squeezed again. Warmth curled over the ice of fear.

 

_No, God, please, I don't want -_

 

"Is this for me, Jason?" Vaas nipped the tip of his ear. "You really do want to sit on my dick, huh? That's messed up."

 

He tried to say no, tried to shake his head, but the hand gave another squeeze, almost painful this time, and the 'no' turned into a low moan.

 

Big laughs all round.

 

_Thanks, I'll be here all week, maybe even for the rest of my life -_

 

Vaas spun him, faced him towards door of the shack in the middle of the compound. Still red. Well, at least some things got through while he was tripping out. If only the snake venom had been kind enough to show a great big pissed-off bear instead of Citra.

 

A hand gripped his shoulder, gave him a hefty shove towards the door. "Come on, _hermano_ ," Vaas said in a hushed voice that made it sound even more fucked up, "let's go, move your feet. That's it."

 

Every step dragged him through the dust. The pirates moved out of their way, eyes burning with blood-sport excitement. The one he had followed with his scope - the one he had fucking _hugged_ \- hissed as he passed. He thought about hissing back when Vaas's hand clenched his wrists, and he looked up to see that the door was right in front of him, right there -

 

Another cold shove between his shoulder blades and the door banged open as he hit it, chest first, and slammed the side of his head into the door frame. then stumbled to the floor with a mouthful of dirt and blood. Behind, the dark quiet of Vaas's voice drifted in and out.

 

The door slammed shut, and for one hopeful bright second, he thought he was alone.

 

Vaas stepped over him, as though he was just a pile of trash lying on the ground, and nudged the tip of a boot into his side. It became a little more insistent, and, with a groan, he rolled onto his back. The stained ceiling swam into view. Something warm trickled down the side of his head.

 

"I told them to kill you if you tried to escape." Nothing, and then Vaas leaned down, hands on knees. "You look like real shit today, Jason. I can't believe you didn't even take a fucking shower before you came to suck my dick. I can't stand bad manners, you know?" A sigh stirred the hair on his forehead. Too close. "You want to come over here for a dance and start humping my leg, you gotta clean yourself up first."

 

Embarrassment and anger flared to his cheeks. "I was thinking of your sister."

 

The blow he braced himself for didn't come. Instead, that Cheshire Cat grin floated above his face. "You were thinking of my sister. So how was she, Jason? Do we taste the same?”

 

“Honestly? You _taste_ like shit.” He managed to heave himself into a sitting position, well aware that he was doing the equivalent of poking a tiger with a stick. The room looked typical of the compound buildings he'd seen – just a little larger, maybe, a window at the back and a table right in the middle. A couple of beds pressed up against the wall.

 

Half-empty bottles on the table. If he could stand up, he could crack one over Vaas's head. Somehow though, he couldn't see Vaas going down at that. Guy would probably be like a lion or an elephant – something that could take several shots to the head before it died, but not before it mauled the hunter.

 

If only he hadn't let the knife go, if only he had fought for it, like he fought Buck for it-

 

_No, no, you fought that asshole for Keith, to get Keith away-_

 

But the thought was a quiet suggestion, a back-row murmur.

 

Vaas tilted his head, a red bird with a black crest observing the wounded jaguar below its tree. “Well, that's too bad for you, isn't it?”

 

A hand reached out. Fingers brushed his cheeks, the touch oily, and he cringed away. “Don't you fucking touch me!”

 

In the time it took to blink, the hand grabbed his jaw, squeezed until his lips pursed and his teeth cut the inside of his cheeks. Vaas breathed against his mouth, lips tickling the sensitive skin. “Don't tell me what to do, Jason. That would be a real bad idea. I will do _whatever the fuck I want_ with you.”

 

His terror choked him, strangled the smart remark he wanted to make into a whisper of breath.

 

The pressure around his jaw turned upwards, and before he could do anything about it his legs worked underneath him, until he stood face-to-face (or face-to-neck) with Vaas. The dull throb of pain in his head simmered.

 

_Slide it in right here._

 

And the hand pressed against his stomach -

 

The machete at Vaas's side caught the light, and the gleam trailed down the edge like a drop of blood.

 

He would be impaled like a fish on a spear, and oh, God, it would hurt.

 

"Don't get cold feet on me now, Jason."

 

He found the words, somehow, through the fear. "You're fucked in the head."

 

The machete flashed. His hands cringed up, but the flat of the blade rested under his chin and went no further. Vaas's words tickled his ear, intimate. "No more than you, _hermano_."

 

"Don't call me that, I'm not your fucking brother."

 

Vaas smiled. The machete left his chin. Hands ran down his arms, thumbs trailing the art of the tattoos there. "Citra really chose the wrong family members, huh?" The fingers tightened, blocked the blood to his fingers. Vaas's forehead rested against his temple, lips at his cheek. "Do you know what they used to do to warriors unworthy of the _tatau_?"

 

The answer seemed obvious. "Killed them."

 

"Oh, Jason." A tongue slid against his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut. "You always think so small."

 

The shove sent him backwards against the table. Hips bruised on the edge. Vaas followed, and, before he could do anything, grabbed the front of his shirt, lifted him up and set his ass on the table. He kicked out high, tried to catch Vaas in the face, but connected with nothing. Plates scattered under his hands, fell to the floor and shattered.

 

A bad dream, this all felt like such a fucking bad dream.

 

Vaas held his legs down, knees over the edge, and mounted the table -- mounted _him_ \-- knees either side of his hips.

 

A bottle neck under his fingers. He only had this one chance.

 

With what little strength he had left, he swung up, aimed for Vaas's head –

 

And smashed the bottle into Vaas's shoulder.

 

The glass fell in shards onto his shirt, then the floor. Vaas grabbed his wrist, wrenched the rest of the broken bottle away, and tossed it into a corner.

 

Both his wrists in one big hand. Vaas rested one forearm on the table beside his head as though nothing had happened. His own hands crushed between their chests, and through one he felt Vaas's heart beat, solid and steady.

 

“They would give them one more trial. And then if they failed that, they would lie them down on a big stone alter in the temple,” Vaas breathed into his neck, “and bring out a special knife. Wherever the ink of the tatau is, they would cut it off. I should do that to you. Send you crawling back to my sister, see how well you fight for her with fucking stumps. See how good you can fuck her without your hands.”

 

"Yeah, Buck-The-Fuck liked to threaten me too. Do you know what I did to him?" He craned his neck up, brushed the tip of Vaas's nose with his own. "I stuck that knife in his heart, _hermano_ , and he died before he hit the ground."

 

"And did you dance with him first, Jason?" His wrists, both pinned to the table beside his head. Vaas swayed over him, hypnotising. Hard again and- _Christ_ , not just him. "Did he fuck that pretty ass?"

 

His reply drowned in a surge of heat that undulated up from between his legs. A hand gripped him there, through his pants, and he couldn't get away or move into the touch. Vaas's eyes gleamed, amused or excited or both.

 

"Don't-"

 

The rest of his words were chased back with the lips that covered his, the tongue that pushed inside and tasted him.

 

He still fought, but the battle was already lost. Hands free and under Vaas's shirt, he clawed the skin there, raked ribs and muscles, fumbled with a belt, a button, and then slid his hand against something hot, something that throbbed under his fingers. His own erection responded, impatient.

 

The bite bruised his neck, pain a sharp crush of skin and blood vessels. He didn't hear himself cry out, but arched off the table, let Vaas's fingers slip his pants down over his ass and then his legs. The air wasn't even nearly cold, but he gasped anyway.

 

“What does she see in you, Snow White?” Vaas whispered, “You're nothing.”

 

The bite mark ached, but he stretched his lips into what was probably a horrifying grin. “I'm the giant-slayer. You're a coked-up pirate.”

 

Vaas leaned back, knees spread over his hips, and considered him with a smile. The resemblance to Citra struck him full force – that smile, those eyes, that expression that could easily be mistaken for patience.

 

“And you're dead, Jason. My sister inked you up and fucked you over.”

 

Before he could spit out some antagonising reply, Vaas grabbed his hips, yanked him onto his stomach. The wooden table top smacked his skin. Sticky liquid covered one cheek. Right, his head had been bleeding. Or was it still bleeding? He reached up, palm against the wound. Dammit, he couldn't tell. At least his head wasn't too fucked up - the doorway must just have sliced his skin open rather than slamming into his skull.

 

Vaas slapped his bare ass, and the noise that strangled out of his throat – a mix of surprise and need – had him burying his face into his arm. The tremble of his body rattled a fork on an overturned plate, the sound a constant, irritating jitter. He swept it off the table, a move that Vaas seemed to consider a cue.

 

The unattractive _hawk-and-spit_ behind didn't register until something blunt and too hard and too hot stroked between his ass. A dull flutter of fear crept into his stomach, but his cock twitched, eager, and he shut the fear down, but kept the awareness. The machete still glinted in his memory. Had to be careful, had to be so careful –

 

Vaas pressed forward, and the pain bruised, ached like the bite mark on his shoulder. He might have said something that might have been 'stop' or 'don't' but he may as well have been begging a tiger to stop mauling him. Each inch burned, but under the pain, pleasure bloomed like some rotting flower. Dirt and shards of wood caught under his fingernails. When Vaas's hips collided with his own and then stilled, he moaned into the skin of his arm, bit down and tasted salt.

 

“Like I told him,” Vaas whispered like some dirty secret, “you're my bitch. Do you see that now, Jason? Do you see that you were mine from the moment you set foot on this island?”

 

He said nothing, kept his eyes on the wall opposite, because this –

 

_This is what we do on the island, no hard feelings –_

 

_We?_

 

Vaas slapped his ass again, like some bad porn star showing off for the camera, then drew a burning inch out, shoved it back in. He rocked forward with a cry that was a couple of degrees away from pain, and wondered, in a vague way, if the table would collapse under their weight.

 

He rested on one forearm and elbow, and the other went on automatic straight to his cock. The relief when his fingers wrapped around it chased away any lingering doubts. They would have their fun – their _careful_ fun, in his case – and then go right back to trying to kill each other. No problems there. Lust and hate had never been mutually exclusive.

 

Outside, the leopard coughed, and the voices of the pirates became a background burble under his heavy panting. Vaas held his hips but didn't move, presumably content to stare at the lovely picture of Snow White with his face down and ass in the air. For a moment, sanity came teetering back like a drunk finally finding the front door of their house, but a sudden brutal thrust chased it away. All the air jolted from his lungs, dragged back in with a moan.

 

The thrusts came hard and staggeringly fast. No gentle build-up, just zero-to-sixty in a few seconds, hips smacking hips with enough force to leave them both red and aching. And between them, where they connected, those flashes of pleasure, hot pulses that muddled his head and worked his hand even faster over his cock. They slowed after a couple of minutes and he whimpered, but an arm went around his chest, hauled him up onto his knees. His own arms went behind, hands to the hips that still rocked against him. At some point, Vaas's shirt had been thrown to the same corner as the broken bottle, and bare skin brushed his back.

 

Vaas chuckled – the sound of a lunatic way past pills-o'clock – and carried on those jackhammer thrusts.

 

“Come on, Jason, laugh –” another thrust brought a breathless grunt from both of them, “aren't we having fun?”

 

He couldn't laugh, but when a hand sneaked down his stomach and wrestled for control of his erection, he moaned loud enough.

 

Who needed sanity anyway?

 

Time meandered, impossible to keep track of it when the high boil of pleasure bubbled from his cock to his brain. Vaas whispered in his ear, words dark as the jungle at night, all of them slipping away with every thrust. Lips latched on to his neck again – sucking this time, not biting, hard enough to leave a dark mark there, so no matter what happened after they were done, he could see it, the entire island could see it and know that their saviour, their warrior, had been fucked by the king of the pirates.

 

Or at least, fucked by someone. And when Citra saw it, what would she say? Would she know it was Vaas?

 

A swoop in his stomach, the kind he got when skydiving or looking over the edge of a ridiculously high cliff. Thrill-junkie, hadn't Liza called him that once? Said he loved the adrenaline rush more than he loved her?

 

And now, here with Vaas – oh, shit, she'd been right.

 

And he didn't care – _couldn't_ care when his cock jerked in Vaas's hand and was encouraged with a whisper of _“Come on, Jason, shoot for me.”_

 

He cried out, grabbed Vaas's hips and pushed forward into the hand that stroked him. Thoughts fled his brain like startled birds, and in those building few seconds before climax, he thought he heard himself saying Vaas's name, over and over.

 

A hitch of breath behind. He trembled, strained upwards, felt every curl of each finger around him.

 

Helpless, he came hard in Vaas's hand, the roll of pleasure crescendoing in a rhythm of _tighten-release._ His eyes squeezed shut, and the sound he made, a yelping shout that matched those waxing and waning waves, closed out everything.

 

It took a few seconds for his vision to clear, but when it did, he was back to being face-down on the table. Aftershocks twitched his hips, and he couldn't help the soft sounds that burst from his throat.

 

Vaas rocked faster. Fingers traced his ass, his hips, chased all the way up his sides. He kept his head down, tried to conjure up some sliver of shame and failed. Maybe the guilt would come later, but now he urged Vaas on with his sounds, spread his knees further apart and let himself be fucked harder.

 

Thrill-junkie to the end.

 

The thrusts stopped, too abrupt to be anything else. Vaas laughed, breathless and all-lunatic again, wrapped an arm around his hips and held him tight, held him close, every inch inside and coming. The sounds from his throat went from soft to loud, as though his body wanted another round but couldn't quite get up the energy again.

 

Whispers snagged in his ear, but he couldn't make out their meaning. Vaas stayed there, locked inside him, as the seconds, then the minutes, ticked past.

 

“Oh, Jason.” Vaas withdrew, and he bit down on a cry, “you're so fucked.”

 

But the words were more like the murmured endearments of an entwined couple. He collapsed on the table, shifted his complaining knees until his legs stretched out behind him and the blood could rush back. Outside, the pirates still muttered, like the underhum of bees in a meadow. A tired voice in his head perked up: _need to find a way to get past them, need to find a way to get away from HIM._

 

_Or stay._ Another voice, the happy little 'yeah, sure, we can go jump out of a plane!' one.  _He can be the king of pirates, you can be the queen, and you can fuck all night if you want to._

 

A clunk behind, boots hitting the floor, and the stupid idea stopped just as suddenly. The king probably wouldn't be so eager to share his kingdom with anyone.

 

He rolled over, kept his eyes on Vaas who stared just as intently back, everything done back up and buckled away, save for the shirt. The machete swung from one shoulder like a guillotine.

 

“Are you just going to fucking lie there, Jason? Because that'll make things easier for me, I don't want to fucking chase you around with your dick hanging out.”

 

_They cut the parts of the body that had tatau off –_

 

He sat up, painfully naked without his weapons. His pants had tangled themselves around one ankle, and he pulled them back up, re-buttoned in record time, and then slipped off the table – to the side, not the direction Vaas faced him.

 

“I want the knife back.” He tried to keep the childish quiver from his voice, expected Vaas to laugh anyway.

 

No laugh, but a smile. “You got some fucking balls, _hermano_ , got some fucking balls. You come back after I'm gone, you see if you can take it from the shitheads out there. But only –” the machete came out, glittering promise, “if you can get out of this room. There.” Vaas spread his arms. “Am I not magnanimous, Jason? You throw a decent fuck, you get paid.”

 

“Yeah, you're a real generous guy.”

 

Three steps was all it took for Vaas to close the distance. The machete whickered through the air with a sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck. He pulled his head back just in time to see the blade blur past. “Fuck!”

 

“Did you think I was fucking lying, Jason?”

 

He sure as shit didn't now.

 

The window – that was probably his best chance. He could deal with glass slicing up his fingers, or falling a few feet onto his face, just fuck, he needed out before the machete sliced him up. Considering that Vaas had all the advantages, speed, strength, you name it, his life expectancy was probably in the minutes instead of the years.

 

The hard splintery back of a chair under his hand. Vaas came forward again, face pulled into a grin like this was just some game, like they had gotten over the fuck and were now wrestling or play-fighting. Another draw of the machete, and he wasn't quite so quick this time. The skin of his upper arm split open, like a cut in an overripe peach, and for a few seconds no blood oozed out, it just stayed as a deep white line.

 

Some fucking playtime.

 

He hauled up the chair (thankfully light enough) and pointed its legs towards Vaas in lion-tamer style. The blood began to run down, covered the tatau, drowned the heron and the spider and let the shark swim.

 

The blade lodged in the wood, hacked a piece out, and then came down again. He backed up, Vaas following like a dog on the heels of a rabbit, and didn't stop until the edge of window frame dug into his ass. Muscles in his arm screamed, on fire, and Vaas pressed closer, sensed his weakness, and moved in for the kill.

 

The machete flashed, and he pushed hard with the chair, rammed with his shoulders. A snap of shock on Vaas's face. The machete flew free, hit the glass and went through. With the last bit of strength he could summon, he threw the chair, clumsy, but in the right direction at least. Vaas threw up an arm to block it, and the voice in the back of his head screamed: _GO!_

 

Glass shards bit into his hands, lodged in there like throbbing, rotten teeth. He could say goodbye to holding anything solid for a while. Doctor Earnhardt better have some wicked 'friends' cooked up when he got there. He hauled himself over (his poor, unappreciated fingers _cried_ at that) and hit the ground just in time to dodge the hand that snatched out at him. The grasping reminded him of a zombie movie, one where the protagonists somehow end up in a graveyard and hands pop out of the ground.

 

He stood, blood dripping between his fingers, and met Vaas's glare. No pirates, not yet. They'd be watching the door, not the back window.

 

“You're a lucky fucker, Snow White,” Vaas hissed, the hole of window between them, “but not for much longer, I think. There's bigger beasts in the jungle.”

 

“Maybe I can fuck my way through all of them. See if they go soft on me too.” One kick of his foot and the machete skidded through the dust and into the bushes that clung to the fence. It would be easy enough to find, but would also buy him some time if Vaas decided to go looking for it and then come after him.

 

“She'll eat you alive, _warrior._ ” Thoughtful instead of pissed now. Vaas's cheek caressed the edge of the window frame. “She'll crack open your bones and suck out the insides.”

 

He edged back, around to the fence. Through the window, Vaas turned with him, _stared._

 

The hole he had come through, not far away. He hated to run away, tail between his legs, but he would. If he needed to, he absolutely would.

 

Vaas's voice again, this time a mad sing-song croon of _“Jaaaasoooon...”_ and he turned, slid between two rusted shells of cars, then an outhouse, past the pirates (still muttering amongst themselves) and to the hole. The bushes rustled as he crept through them. His hands, arm and head all throbbed, out of sync with each other.

 

He hadn't lost the knife. It was just... not his for a little bit. Two days, maybe three, and it would be again. And he'd show Citra, and she'd kiss him, and maybe he would try not to think of her brother when she did.

 

When he could grip the knife again, woe betide any snake that slithered across his path.

 


End file.
